Seeing the Light

Years ago, I met a woman with a wonderful library. She had many books on spirituality, on the quest to come closer to the divine. She had A Course in Miracles. She had Zen Bhuddism. She had Conversations With God.

I had already done extensive reading on the subject of being human and seeking God. I began to read the books in her library and we would sit together, on her massive sofa, and talk and talk of what we had read, what we had realized, what we had experienced in our quest for God. And often, we would say, "They are all really saying the same thing, just using different words," and we would feel the truth of that, how we are all, everyone on this planet, using different words and different paths to come to the same glorious and transcendent Union with the Divine that we KNOW is there. We can feel it.

Lately, I have come to hold an image within myself, an image that I would like to share with you now.

Imagine a vast circle - so large that every single human being can be standing at the outside edge of the circle and they can barely see the person on their left and the person on their right. At the center of the circle is the pure and glorious light and love that is Creator, that is God, by whatever word you choose to use to name that which is more than can ever be named.

Over the years, we have all been travelling toward that light. Slowly, but surely, with some stops and starts, some turns and twists, we have been moving toward that light.

The closer we get to the center of the circle, to the pure and sacred light at the center, the closer we get to each other as well. As we move toward the center of the circle, we all become closer to each other on our paths to Source. When we get really close to the One that is ALL, we realize that each path has been a perfect and a sacred path all along. We realize that all of the people, every single human being on this planet, has been moving closer to that light, has been going to the exact same place that we have been going to. It's just that they came to it from a different angle, from a different place on the outside edge of the circle.

When we get so close to the center of the circle that it becomes really difficult to know where we end and the light there begins, we realize that every single human being on this planet is bathed in that same light. We look to the left, and we see the light and the love of Creator. We look to the right, and we see the love and the light of Creator. We look within ourselves and we see this love and this light. Even in our darkest corners, the light shines. We look into the eyes of those nearest to us within this vast circle of human beings, and we see this love and this light. We see that even in their darkest corners, the light shines.

We can remember the vast stretch of the circle. We can remember how far from Source we were and how distant other seekers seemed to be from us in our seeking, how different their paths seemed to be from our path, our sacred and holy path to the Divine. We can remember this, but we are so bathed now, in the light of the Divine, that we realize our own brilliance, our own divinity within us, and as we look to left and right, we see throngs of human beings, we see multitudes. This circle is filled now with the multitudes of human beings, moving fast or slow, moving with certainty or with many questions, but always moving toward the center of the circle, toward the incredibly pure and beautiful light that is the One that is ALL, that is Source, that is Creator.

It has seemed that we were so far apart from each other. It has seemed that some were so different from us. It has seemed that we might get there, might be able to get there, on our path, but that others could not do so, for they followed a path so different than our own. It seemed that we were so isolated, so alone, some of us, on our path to God. In reality, we were just on a different part of the circle. In reality, every single person on this planet has been moving toward the center of that holy circle, each in his or her own way, each on a sacred path to God.

And we have not been mistaken. We have not been misdirected or lost. We have not been alone on this quest, alone in this seeking, although it seemed that way. We just couldn't see the others, on other parts of the circle, until we got this close to the center, and realized our essential togetherness as we come so close now, multitudes of us together, so close to that light.

And we realize, as we get so close now, that the closer we get, the smaller the circle becomes for us, until the Oneness is ours, until there is no difference, no separation, between my path and yours, between my seeking and yours, between my love for God and yours.

And then, we are there. We are standing bathed in that incredible brilliance, that incredible peace, that incredible love. We are there and we realize that so is everyone else. Everyone else is there too. Everyone has been moving toward the center, coming in from the far distant edges of this vast, beyond all comprehension vast, circle. And we rejoice, then, in our love and our light. We rejoice in our unity with that divine center. We rejoice in those who are so close to us, multitudes of human beings, all drawn by their own divine center within, to this union with the One that is ALL.